Is “Portuguese-speaking” Africa Comparable to “Latin” America? Voyaging in the Midst of Colonialities of Power

Cahen, Michel

doi:10.1017/hia.2013.1

Hist. Afr.

2013

DOI: 10.1017/hia.2013.1

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Is “Portuguese-speaking” Africa Comparable to “Latin” America? Voyaging in the Midst of Colonialities of Power

Michel Cahen

Abstract: Establishing a comparison between so-called "Latin" America and "Portuguese-speaking" Africa may well prove useful in highlighting certain major differences between those countries of America and Africa having undergone early colonization. But the main difference will not concern the hundred and fifty years between the independences of the early nineteenth and those of the late (1974)(1975) twentieth century. It will lie in the very nature of the states created, on the one hand,

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Cited by 3 publications

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Limitations and Ambiguities of Colonialism in Guinea-Bissau. Examining the Creole and “Civilized” Space in Colonial Society

Kohl¹

2015

Hist. Afr.

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This paper is about the exploration of discrepancies between words and deeds of Portuguese colonial rule in Guinea-Bissau, Portugal pretending to "integrate" and "enable" into colonial society those individuals of African origin who were deemed to be "civilized." The essay illustrates potentials and limitations of margins of maneuver of those supposedly subjected under colonial rule. Against this background I will analyze the transformations, continuities, and ruptures of creole identities throughout time, showing how identitarian categories and classifications evolved, changed, and disappeared. It will be shown how the intersection with other identities has been a key characteristic of creole identity over time. In doing so, the analysis focuses on different areas, such as population demographics and classifications, education, and political participation.Résumé : Cet article se penche sur les différences qui existent entre le discours colonial portugais et la réalité de terrain en Guinée-Bissau. Ainsi, la puissance coloniale portugaise prétendait "intégrer" et "habiliter" au sein de la société coloniale les individus d'origine africaine considérés comme étant "civilisés." Ce papier

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Limitations and Ambiguities of Colonialism in Guinea-Bissau. Examining the Creole and “Civilized” Space in Colonial Society

Kohl¹

2015

Hist. Afr.

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The historical roots of multicultural unity along the Upper Guinea Coast and in Guinea-Bissau

Hawthorne

Nafafé²

2016

Social Dynamics

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General rightsThis document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/pure/about/ebr-terms Abstract: Lusofonia or lusophony is often defined as an identity shared by people in areas that were once colonised by Portugal, which in Africa include Angola, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe. Lusofonia assumes that in these places people share something -a language, certainly, but also a history and culture rooted in the Iberian Peninsula. In some ways, it is a re-articulation of Gilberto Freyre's lusotropicalismo, the idea that Portuguese were more adaptable than other Europeans to tropical climates and cultures and created more multicultural colonial communities. Those who espouse lusofonia often have a political agenda -the strengthening of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP). In this article, we argue that like lusotropicalismo, lusofonia is a dream; it is not rooted in a historical reality. It is luso-centric in that it ignores the power and persistence of local cultures and gives undo weight to Portuguese influence. With regard to Africa, lusofonia's agenda is elite driven and assumes the inevitability of modernity and globalisation. And we demonstrate that it was through Upper Guinean institutions and * Corresponding author. Email: walterh@msu.edu; jose.lingnanafafe@bristol.ac.uk 2 languages, and not colonial ones, that community and fellowship were most commonly fostered in the past, as they are fostered today. Those seeking the roots of lusofonia cannot, then, look to this period of Portuguese-African engagement in Upper Guinea. There Portuguese embraced "black ways." They operated in a peculiar multicultural space in which people possessed fluid and flexible identities. Portugal did not create that space. Lusofonia has not been the foundation for cultural unity. Rather, unity has been found in localised institutions and in Crioulo. In Guinea-Bissau, lusofonia is not an indigenous movement. If it is anything, it is the stuff of elites and foreigners and is not rooted in any historical reality.

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Reciprocal migration: the coloniality of recent two-way migration links between Angola and Portugal

Augusto

Alves

King

et al. 2022

CMS

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Reciprocal migration—which we define as the mutual exchange of origin and destination by two different migrating groups—is hardly acknowledged in the migration literature. In terms of the temporalities of migration, which are usually seen as sequences or transitions, reciprocal migrations are simultaneous. We analyse the reciprocal migrations between Angola and Portugal over the time-frame of the past 10–15 years. In-depth interviews were carried out with Portuguese migrants in Angola, most of whom moved there in the wake of the post-2008 financial crisis, and with Angolan third-level students and recent graduates in Portugal. A key operational concept in our analysis is the plastic notion of skill and its differential racialisation. Portuguese migrants in Angola are automatically regarded as ‘skilled’ even when they are not, whereas Angolan students and graduates in Portugal, when they seek work, are often viewed as ‘unskilled African migrant workers’. We thus distinguish and deconstruct the geographical binary between transnational origin and destination spaces and the social binary between ‘skilled white bodies’ and ‘unskilled black bodies’. These racialised embodied tropes draw on histories of Portuguese colonisation and the contested notion of ‘Lusotropicalism’, as well as the so-called Lusophone migration system involving complex transnational relations and two-way migration flows. Theoretically we frame this asymmetrical system of reciprocal migration within a modified version of core–periphery relations, as well as the coloniality of power and its enduring influence over the racialisation of skill, education, culture and language across the Portuguese–Angolan transnational space.

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Is “Portuguese-speaking” Africa Comparable to “Latin” America? Voyaging in the Midst of Colonialities of Power

Cited by 3 publications

References 20 publications

Limitations and Ambiguities of Colonialism in Guinea-Bissau. Examining the Creole and “Civilized” Space in Colonial Society

Limitations and Ambiguities of Colonialism in Guinea-Bissau. Examining the Creole and “Civilized” Space in Colonial Society

The historical roots of multicultural unity along the Upper Guinea Coast and in Guinea-Bissau

Reciprocal migration: the coloniality of recent two-way migration links between Angola and Portugal

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